Selling from the Heart – with Larry Levine – ep 60

Mostafa Hosseini  0:03 

And we’re live Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. And we’re here with another episode with an amazing guest, Larry Levine. And we’re talking about selling from the heart.

Amazing topic very important and very important these days. Now at daily conference for entrepreneurs, we focus on sharing tips, strategies, and actionable advice that you could use when it comes to running your business on a daily basis and boosts your confidence during before and after the show. If you like, comment, and subscribe to our channel on whichever channel you’re watching from you subscribe, you enter to draw to win gifts.

And if you could tag a friend who could benefit from the conversation that we’re having, and or ask questions while we’re live, you enter your name for the draw, as well. Make sure you follow and subscribe to whichever channel you’re watching from but whether it’s YouTube, LinkedIn, or any other channel you are Facebook friends for that now. Welcome, Larry. How’s your day going? So far?

Larry Levine  1:13 

It’s going awesome. Hey, I’ve been looking forward to this. I think we’re gonna have a great time. I can already tell.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:17 

Likewise. Yeah, I look forward to this. And it’s one of my favorite topics. And so let me get a proper introduction to you. And then we’re going to dive right into it, shall we?

Larry Levine  1:27 

You go for it your show. I’m just here for the ride.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:31 

I appreciate it. Larry Levine is the best selling author of selling from the heart and the co host of the selling from the heart podcast with 30 years. In the field sales experience with within the b2b technology space, he knows what it takes to be a successful sales professional. In a post trust sales world, Larry Levine helps sales teams leverage the power of authenticity to grow revenue, grow themselves and enhance the life lives of their clients.

Larry is, is leading a revolution and a movement of authenticity, integrity, and substance in the sales profession. He believes people would rather do business with a sales professional who sells from the heart, as opposed to a sales rep who is an empty suit. Welcome, Larry. How’s it going?

Larry Levine  2:25 

Sorry. I’m laughing I just every time I hear empty suit, I just start laughing so sorry. Oh, that’s how I gotta I gotta

Mostafa Hosseini  2:34 

get up. We’re gonna talk about it for a good hour here. Oh, are you logging from?

Larry Levine  2:40 

I’m in Southern California. So I live in a city called 1000. Oaks, California, which is sandwiched in between Los Angeles. And Santa Barbara about 50 miles inland from Malibu, California.

Mostafa Hosseini  2:51 

Nice, nice. And what’s the weather like down there right now?

Larry Levine  2:55 

It’s pleasantly beautiful. It’s we were just talking about it’s 81 degrees right now. So convert that to Celsius for all the Celsius people and do the math because

Mostafa Hosseini  3:05 

2627 degrees. Yeah, something like that. Pretty close to what we got up here in Canada in Calgary, Alberta. And I really look forward to this. So are you must be close to the ocean, obviously. Right?

Larry Levine  3:19 

We get the ocean breeze every day. So I like it. I’m 50 miles from Malibu. I’m about 12 miles from what we call Oxnard, Ventura, and all that. So I’m fairly close to the ocean.

Mostafa Hosseini  3:32 

Very nice. You do? Do you do surfing and stuff?

Larry Levine  3:36 

I know. Oh, that would be no and that’s where the capital No, no. Okay,

Mostafa Hosseini  3:43 

so personal stuff. Later. So, Larry, what is your story?

Larry Levine  3:51 

In thanks for asking because I have a very close mentor, a friend of mine. And he always shares this with me. He goes, you never know somebody until you know their backstory. Aha, and backstories are phenomenal because I believe that’s the fastest way you can connect and relate to somebody is through their backstory.

So I’ll take everyone if it’s okay. I’m going to take them on a quick journey. But I think they’ll really get an idea from my backstory to what led me to what I’m doing right now. I think it’ll become crystal clear. So I grew up in a house a really unique and different household. And I share this with you because I love my parents dearly. But I was cut from a different mold. So my dad was a rocket. So my dad both my parents are still alive.

They’re both retired. My dad was a rocket scientist for the United States Air Force. And my mom was just like an executive admin person. And my dad studied liquid jet propulsion has got a PhD in aeronautical physics from two Ivy League schools before he was 20. So kind of setting the stage that’s what I had to grow. up with. I grew up with a very process oriented, highly educated father, and a very relationship oriented mom, my dad traveled a lot was constantly gone.

And my mom raised us with my two sisters. So I always say I’ve got a lot of female tendencies in me. And that’s okay, because that’s what makes me. I’m a highly emotional guy, very emotional guy. And after graduating college, I fell into sales. It’s a complete polar opposite of what my parents are doing. They hate everything about sales, and I fell into sales. And I fell into the most brutally competitive, what I call highly dysfunctional sales channel that’s out there, I can say, because I lived through it.

 I grew up in the office technology channel. So I sell copiers in the Los Angeles marketplace, my whole entire career 28 plus years selling copiers. Wow, throughout Los Angeles. And what was really interesting is the first year I was in sales, it was the best year of my life. And the worst year of my life. That’s where I really learned some of the things that transformed what I did in the sales channel that I grew up in, is, I made good money, the first year more money than I’d ever made previously, which was all this goes back to 1987.

I will tell you, I made 18,000 whopping dollars in 1987. And I thought I was making a lot of money because I was right out of college. And there was old school analog in nature. And I caught on to something really quick. And I share this with people as I believe one of my secret gifts was I had an innate sixth sense. I was really cognizant of what this what was going on within my sales team, I was listening to and watching how salespeople were interacting on the phone, what they were saying, and possibly what they were not saying or what they could have said, I was doing ride outs with salespeople.

And I learned something along the line very quickly, that if I didn’t make it about them, if I didn’t make it about the customer or my future customer, I was going to be short lived for sales career. Because at that time, everybody made it about them their product or company, quite frankly, it still happens to today. But what I did that was completely polar opposite is I’m a very inquisitive person.

And I started to ask people as I started to develop my book of business, what do you like? What do you don’t like about salespeople? What’s great service look like? What’s horrific service look like what’s exceptional service look like. And I started to build this up. And I started to build this up. And again, this isn’t rocket science, I just did the complete polar opposite of everything of all the negative things and I flipped them into positive. And I consistently doubled down on caring, respect, appreciation. And I poured into my customers more than anybody else. I was never the smartest salesperson out there.

Larry Levine  8:07 

But nobody was going out care me. In in in a sales world. It’s brutally competitive in its sales channel that the race to the bottom still exists to this day, with high sales turnover. What made me stand out was me. And it’s what I brought to the forefront.

 It’s how I connected and related to my customers. And it propelled me through a whole entire career from every sales position until I exited the copier channel in 20, in the spring of 2015. And in the spring of 2015, I had a life altering moment. I was fired from my very first job ever. And I openly talk about it. Now I had to come to grips with it.

I came to grips with it through writing my book. But I was not job for like 2030 years there. No, actually I was with the same company 20 years. Then I agreed to disagree. And we parted ways. And I sold a portion of my company. And then I went on to start another part of my career later on in life. And I’m a big believer in this, that we have aha moments throughout our life, that those aha moments can be good aha moments, or they can be not so good aha moments, an aha moment when I realized that about 48 years old, it was time for me to move on.

 And so I sold a portion of my company and I decided to move on. And I went to the corporate side, the direct side of life in the office technology channel. And I spent 1819 months excuse me in that sales channel until the day I was relieved from my job duties totally came unexpected. At 50 years old, I had to find myself doing something else.

First time ever that I was found myself without a job and I decide what to do. I can either go back and be a VP of sales in the sales channel that I grew up in and right off to a complacent sunset making really good money, or I could choose to do something else. And I doubled down on myself, I reinvented myself. And I said, you know, I’m going to start working with sales teams, sales leaders, sales organizations, on what made me me.

And that would what I believe made me me as I brought my heart to the forefront, I brought the best version of myself to the forefront, I cared about my customers. And I learned the art behind truly building a relationship with people to help me grow my business. And I believe still to this day, in my heart, this is the missing link in sales. It’s bringing your best version of yourself for how you connect at a heart level, and how you bridge the relational gaps that are going on between sales people, sales organizations, organizations in general and their customers. God

Mostafa Hosseini  10:51 

Hmm. So you put you touched on a few important points that I’m going to come back to later. So what do you do now? What are you doing these days? And who do you serve?

Larry Levine  11:01 

So, again, it’s it’s morphed over time. And again, I want to preface this, I’m not afraid to try new things. I believe that the way you grow is to try new things. And to me growth and comfort, they don’t play well together. They just they just don’t they don’t coexist. It’s impossible to grow. If your comfort. If you’re comfortable, you can’t grow.

So at 50 years old, I embarked on being an entrepreneur, I always say I was forced into entrepreneurship. I didn’t choose entrepreneurship, it was forced on me because of the circumstances that were dealt to me at 50 years old. So for about a year and a half, almost two years, I worked exclusively in the office technology channel, just coaching sales teams on how to integrate the concepts around social write how to position themselves on LinkedIn, and so forth.

And I was, and I was freaking beating my head against the wall, just absolutely going bonkers, going, You know what, there’s got to be a better way. And either if I figure this out, something’s got to give because it just wasn’t happening after a year and a half. And I almost gave up. And I remember it was, I was getting ready to speak at an event.

And he wasn’t my podcast partner at the time. But I asked a very close near and dear friend of mine, Darryl Amy, who’s now the co host of the selling from the heart podcast. I asked him, I said, Hey, you know what? I’m just willing to try new things. Do you want to start a podcast? And he goes, What the heck are you talking about?

Why do you want to start a podcast? What are 2x copier guys going to talk about? That anybody will listen to? And I go, I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. We’ll just figure it out. And he goes, all do it only under one condition. You better come up with a really good name for this podcast, or I’m bailing. I’m gonna bail on you, you fly solo on this podcast. I said, that’s cool. We’ll call it selling from the heart. And he goes, Oh, I like it.

 He goes, by the way, where’d you pull that one from? And I said, hey, you’ve known me for a long time, I brought my heart to the forefront. I’m a highly emotional relationship, or you know, I’m a sensitive guy in a minute. We’re gonna bring heart sincerity, we’re gonna bring authenticity to the forefront. We’re going to create a movement around this in the sales profession. He goes, I’m all in four years ago, we started the selling from a hard podcast, very nice. The book, then it transitioned to the book, the book came out two and a half years ago. And my life’s never been the same sense.

I work with all kinds of organizations, from SAS, to tack to banking to the sports world. Some organizations in the old sales channel that I came in financial services, insurance services, any organization where relationships matter. I’m going to work with them to help strengthen relationships, grow revenue, and grow their salespeople to improve the relationships with their most precious asset, that being their current customers.

Mostafa Hosseini  14:01 

Love it. Love it. Love it. So you talked about transitioning at at age 50, you sold your company you got out and then you had to find yourself. And so I figured that within a year and half past year and a half of the pandemic, a lot of people kind of have had to find themselves or they are in the process of how did that go for you?

And what is was there anything in particular that you did to kind of overcome that finding of yourself where you felt like you probably were lost? And you’re like, here’s what I did here is here’s a book, here’s a list or a bunch of questions. What did you exactly did you do?

Larry Levine  14:46 

It we were I was just talking about this yesterday, not on a podcast, but I was just talking about that good friend of mine. If I you’ll find look, I’m 56 years old. So if I look back and I go back to I’m going to say if I go back I’ll just cut my age in half. If I went back to when I was 28 years old, I wish I would have done what I’m doing now at 28 years old. But I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know. I knew what I knew. And I knew what I didn’t know, right?

I would suggest this the best thing because I’ve seen it, I’ve transformed myself, I believe, even during the pandemic, is I learned how to double down on myself. So what’s that mean? I’m a big believer in this, it’s the inner work that people do will transform the outer success that they have. And the inner work means you got to really get in tune with who you are. And by the way, I have, I’m gonna preface about what I’m ready to say is, I don’t have a doctorate in psychology, human behavior, anything like that. None whatsoever. But I always tell people, I have a doctorate from getting the crap kicked out of me selling copiers in Los Angeles my whole life.

I’m just bringing real world stuff through a practitioners eyes to the forefront, and I’m willing to talk about things. And I’m willing, I always say that the mess that I created has now become my message. All the mess that I went through in my late 40s and into my 50s has now become my message. And so what I’d offer people to really just really, really think about especially in sales, because this was just asked me a couple days ago, somebody asked me a salesperson asked me to go, Larry, how does all this inner work?

How does all of this stuff translate to me becoming a better salesperson? Hmm. And I go, great question. I said what happens when you don’t maintain your car? What happens if you never change the oil? If you never, you know, get do routine tuneups on your car, what happens if you never change the tires and all that? They go? Mike goes, my car falls apart.

I said, What happens if you never do routine checkups for yourself? And I’m not I’m not talking about routine visits to the doctor. I’m talking inner work is inner heart work, inner mind work, inner body work. I learned this during the pandemic really, really well. Yeah. And where I learned this from is my coaches and mentors, people that are near and dear to me, people that are in my inner circle that I confide in. I learned how to transform my morning routines. That transformed my brain that actually, once I was in a better state of mind, selling from the heart started to expand even more.

Why am I saying this is we got to learn how to reinvent ourselves. We got to learn how to get reacquainted with ourselves, we got to learn how to reengage with ourselves. Everyone in this I’m being sales specific when I say this, is the vast majority of people out there and sales are chasing the wrong thing. And I’ll repeat that many I believe in sales are chasing the wrong thing. I chased it for a long time. I chased the commission checks.

 I chased all the materialistic things that came along with sales. But what I was failed to what I was failing mildly at working out was the inner part of who I was. I was happy on the outside. Botha wasn’t happy on the inside. If you get what I’m saying.

Mostafa Hosseini  18:09 

No, yeah. So what did you do? What were some examples of things that you get to like, let’s talk about your morning routine. You said your independent did I get this right? You said you’re in a pandemic, you kind of revamped your morning routine? Uh huh.

Larry Levine  18:21 

So what

Mostafa Hosseini  18:25 

would you share

Larry Levine  18:27 

with me? I’m an open book, you can ask me anything? And I’ll tell that No, no, no big deal. I get up at three o’clock in the morning, seven days a week. And by the way, I’m on the West Coast time. So I get up at three o’clock in the morning Pacific Standard Time. I do it for a reason because it works for me. And I’m not saying I get up at three to rub it in everyone’s face and say, Hey, get up before 85% of most people.

 I figured out a long time ago where my brain works the best. And I learned that I’m a morning person. And I try to get all my heavy lifting all my things done. When my brains the freshest. And when my brains not the freshest usually mid towards late afternoon. I don’t do any heavy work. I’ll have conversations but nothing that requires thought.

So at three o’clock in the morning, when I wake up. The first I’m a big believer and I learned this over time is I would I’d still wake up at three but I’d go right to the gym, because I went to a gym that was constantly open. But then over the past year, I just transformed my morning routine. So I will wake up at three o’clock in the morning, again seven days a week. I drink a glass of water. So the first thing I do first thing in the morning I literally get up a walk right to the kitchen, drink a glass of water.

And then for one hour I work completely on myself completely for the first 15 minutes of the morning. I will sit either in my office, or I’ll go into the living room and I’ll sit in complete darkness. That’s it. You meditate. I don’t meditate, but I just the wheels start turning right. I just thinking, I just think it’s not complicated stuff, right?

 It’s not mind bending stuff. I just for 15 minutes, I just process, you know, what’s something I can do different today? What did I do yesterday, right? Who’s one person I can have a conversation with these are just a works for may may not work for anybody else. But the I talked about the first hour is mindset, messaging. And me, those are the three things that I work on the first hour. So the first 15 minutes complete darkness, then for the next 20 to 30 minutes, I will then either watch, or listen to a leadership podcast.

And it could be spiritual leadership, it could be just leaders that I look up to. I’ll either follow him on YouTube, or I’ll listen to their podcasts, something like that. That’s the next part of this. And then the remaining part of this I tried to read two to three chapters of a book. That’s the first hour of every morning, why I’m filling my brain with positivity. Love it. And it gives me things to talk about. Mm hmm. It gives me things to talk about with like minded people, people in my inner circle clients, future clients.

Yeah, I’m a big believer that the first hour of what you do will determine what happens throughout the day. Now there might be listeners that are watching this that are going I think you’re fully you know what, I just can’t see how this plays out. But I am here to tell you how do you know if it doesn’t work unless you try it.

I’m not saying that y’all get up at three o’clock in the morning, get up when you do right, I challenge you to get up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do. spend five minutes and self reflect, spend 10 minutes and listen to something inspirational or motivational. And read two or three chapters of a book. You can literally do that in 30 minutes. Yeah. And then and then you know, after that first hour, I might do a light workout in my house. And I might check some email. And then I take a break. And I usually go out for a walk.

And then right about six o’clock in the morning I journal and I write down my mission statement, I write down three things I’m grateful for I write down an inspirational message, I write down three things that I want to accomplish today. I write down somebody, some friend, I’m going to reach out to a client, I’m going to reach out to a friend I’m going to reach out to an influencer a prospect.

And I write this down every single day. And then at the end of the day, I reflect upon it, what worked, what didn’t work, what was my lesson for the day. And that’s all sandwiched in between working.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:46 

And you do all of that in the morning. I do all of that

Larry Levine  22:50 

in the morning. And then I recap for about 1015 minutes in the afternoon before I wrap my day up.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:56 

So you write down who your influencers friends. I got that right.

Larry Levine  23:02 

Yeah, in fact, I’ll if you don’t mind, you want me to share it, I get your? Absolutely. So I use I use a form like this. Right? Can you see this? Yep. So for you, I use a form just like this. And I write down every single day. I’m a big believer, it’s pen to paper. And I write down my mission statement of value for the day I write down three things.

I’m grateful for three things I’m anticipating throughout the day, I write down an inspirational quote. And then on the back, I take my electronic calendar, and I convert it to paper and write down here. I have a running total of everything that I do from five o’clock in the morning until I check out in the afternoon, by hour by 30 minute increments.

And then I write down. One thing I’m going to work on on my heart, my mind and my energy for the day. And I write down one person I’m going to reach out to me that’s a family member, a friend, a client, a prospect or an influencer. And then I write down the must dues that I must do for that day in the rest of the week. And I do that every single day.

Mostafa Hosseini  24:05 

Well, that’s actually very powerful, very at do you literally do this every day. Are there days where you’re like, Oh, I just don’t feel like doing it today. It’s it’s

Larry Levine  24:15 

me. Listen, it’s every single day. And this is 90 days worth. And then at the end of every quarter, I just clip it and then I have them here and I can thumb through it.

Mostafa Hosseini  24:27 

Okay, so what’s what’s what has been the result of doing this for you? What’s been someone that when compared to where you were, you weren’t doing this type of work?

Larry Levine  24:39 

Well, I write about it. Sorry, I was just putting it aside is I write about it in the beginnings of selling from the heart I talk about sales chaos. And to me sales chaos occurs when you wake up in the morning and you get out of bed. You knock back a banana and a cup of coffee. You start checking your email or you watch the news. I’m not here to say, you know, y’all y’all have choices and you can do whatever you want to do in the morning.

Yeah. However, transforming your morning and how you play out your morning determines what happens throughout the day. I’m here to share. It’s it’s it’s mind blowing how this plays out. So what’s happened with me, especially during the pandemic, as we push through this pandemic, is a way of transform my morning, I’ve gotten a deeper connections with my clients.

Now, when I’m out prospecting for business, yes, prospecting for business, because I got to grow my business as well. Yeah, I now have things to talk about with like minded executives, because the one thing that I’ve noticed is like minded people hang out with other like minded people, high achievers hang out with other high achievers.

Mostafa Hosseini  25:56 

Very nice. I love what you just went through, we’d like to take, I would call that getting a hold and conduct and understanding and become aware of what you go through throughout the day, setting goals. You know, here’s who I’m going to reach out to here is what I’m going to work on my heart on my fit physical body and my, you know, mindset and the rest of it. And I think at the end of the day, and correct me if I’m wrong, and gives you awareness of where you were at what happened today, and where you’re going to do maybe today or tomorrow, or,

Larry Levine  26:35 

I mean, I mean, literally, maybe it’s a, so I’m going to give some credit to my parents. I’m a big believer, your products, your environment. Uh huh. And, you know, it took me a long time to figure this out. But I grew up with a lot of process and planning. And I didn’t know and I didn’t realize it until later on in life. This works for me, I just learned how to manage my time really well. And I learned how to manage my activities with in that to a tee.

 So I time block everything. I color code everything. Now, it might be a little bit extreme. But it works for me, right? I’m a Google. I’m a Google freak. I can look on my Google Calendar on any given week, and it’s color coded. I know exactly, you know, between the hours of three and four, I color code in a certain way I can glance through that.

And I know that’s my time. Right? Then all everything that I haven’t read is client facing new opportunity, generating stuff that’s in one color. If I want to decompress, so sometimes during the week, I’ll take three hours, right? decompress. That’s a different color. Mm hmm. When I podcast that’s a different color. So I can look throughout a given week. And I know instantaneously what happens every single week.

And I think what I think what happens is, if we don’t control time, it’ll control us. Right? We all have the say, we all have. I’m a big Craig Rochelle fan, I listen to Craig Rochelle podcast all the time. And I remember him saying something to the effect, I’m gonna, I’m gonna butcher it. But y’all get the sense. He goes, I don’t believe that we have a time problem.

We have an energy problem. Because we all have the same amount of time in a given day, 24 hours a day. That’s it, right? There’s not 24 hours in seven seconds, there’s 24 hours in a day, it’s the energy that you put forth within that time frame.

Stop and think about that for a second. I just I just learned that between the hours of when I wake up and mid afternoon my brain works is on high octane. Yeah. And I maximize it the best that I can. And then after that, I that you will never find me engaged in a in a meeting that requires a lot of brain power past three o’clock in the afternoon.

It’s not gonna happen. But I’ll engage all engage in conversations right, with a client or a conversation with a prospect that doesn’t require what I call a lot of brainpower. Because I know I’m not on my game. And if they want to meet in the afternoon, I’m gonna encourage them, why don’t we just revisit this, you know, in a week or so in a couple of days in these times? Just a thought,

Mostafa Hosseini  29:28 

absolutely. No, I really liked that idea of doing the most important things in the morning. I’m the same, like when I read, if I read in the morning, that’s when I observed the most. Like, I don’t have to think about too much because my brain is somewhat empty.

 And then when when my brains brains engine gets going in an afternoon or in the evening, it doesn’t absorb as much and I could think I think a lot better and faster in the morning. So we have then the question is Adele says how do you prioritize Your activities. I mean, their sales, marketing, fulfillment, learning implementation support, how do you juggle different hats?

Larry Levine  30:07 

So it’s it’s interesting is a couple things is I learned how to prioritize like me time first. And then after me time when it starts getting into work time, I will tell you this, I process by prospect every single day. That’s one activity, right? So I pray. So it gets back to this, how do you prioritize activities? I just hold myself accountable to do it. It’s non negotiable, is you know what, when I look throughout my whole sales career, there were certain non negotiable activities that I held myself accountable to, and I write about it in selling from the heart, there’s a vast difference between what I call a sales professional and a sales rep. Right?

 There’s a vast difference between a professional athletes and an amateur athlete. Yeah. So quite simple, right? And I’m just gonna be real direct, when I say this, is sales professionals are willing to do the things that most sales reps aren’t willing to do. And that’s hold themselves massively accountable to themselves. So I prioritize those activities, right. I know when I get up and I hold myself accountable to the first hour, then I do other things right.

Then it’s six o’clock I journal then for an hour, yes, for an hour I prospect. I’m looking to start conversations, I’m looking to grow my business, and I hold myself accountable to do it. And I prospect seven days a week. I’ll repeat that seven days a week, which means saturday and sunday i prospect. Now some of you guys are going, Larry, you’re a box of rocks. What the heck, right? Though, I figured out that when we combine different ways to prospect and all include social into this social doesn’t sleep, I found that if you want to engage executives do it when it’s non working hours, I found the single best time to engage with executives all over the world.

And I’ll give you a little tip it works hands down. If my wife happened to jump on this podcast right now she’d validate the whole thing. Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings between the hours of six o’clock at eight o’clock West Coast time. So y’all can figure out the clock difference wherever else you’re at, between six o’clock in the morning and eight o’clock West Coast time here in Los Angeles, I can set one to two conversations and appointments with executives.

 It’s on my calendar, I do it every single Saturday and Sunday. And I hold myself accountable to do it. Hmm, those are, those are those are things that I do so get it. I just I just and I’ll come back to it. But I want to make sure that I answer the question is I just prioritize, and I color code calendars. And I know that that’s my prospecting time, here’s my client facing time. Here’s my marketing time. We have an admin person at selling from the heart, I offload my stuff to my virtual admin person.

So we’ve just learned how to delegate tasks. Yeah, to maximize the amount of time that I have in a given day to get everything done. It’s hard to juggle multiple hats. But I time block everything. So I know by an hour what I’m doing. And I stick to it. Do I deviate from it every now and then? Yeah, because something’s going to happen where I need to shuffle the deck. But I know how to juggle sales and marketing, admin stuff we offload and things.

And that works for me. But I’ve just become I just become really astute at managing time and holding myself accountable. And I have a no excuse mindset. And that means that means this stuff gets done. I don’t come up with excuses I hold myself personally accountable to that’s what makes me me, but that’s what I coach salespeople to do.

Mostafa Hosseini  34:04 

So how do you do where do you go for prospecting? Is that on phone, email, LinkedIn, social media, a combination of what’s your approach?

Larry Levine  34:15 

Just think of and I’m not one who says, you know, old school versus new school, and this is the way to prospect right? To me, you prospect leveraging every means available to you. I’ll give you an analogy. And I use a golfing analogy because I write about it and sell it from the heart and I’ve written some articles about it as well, is that just look at a professional golfer for a moment, right?

A professional golfer knows how to use every club iron wedge and putter in their bag to the best of their ability. Right? Absolutely. There’s 14 clubs in a standard golf back. And regardless if you’re the number one golfer in the world, or you’re the 250th ranked golfer in the world, I promise you this they know how to use those clubs. To the best of their ability based on where that ball is on the course, what’s different to me what’s different between the number one and the 250th ranked golfer is mindset and skill set right? In their attitudes.

 So same thing that if we take that philosophy and we apply it to sales, and we apply it to prospecting, that’s use the analogy of 14 clubs in a golf bag. I’m here to tell you this that most. And yes, I’m saying most salespeople are going to develop business with two or three clubs in their prospecting bag, their email, phone, and spotty at best with social and they expect to succeed, or they rely on somebody else. Right an SDR, BDR, to prospect and I probably just opened up a whole nother can of worms with all this stuff.

But how many salespeople have a prospecting mindset? They don’t write? Sorry, they don’t. So when I look at prospecting, there’s many different ways to prospect. Now, I might be a little bit different just because you know, I have a podcast and so forth. But I leveraged my podcast, I leveraged my book, I leverage how I position myself on LinkedIn. I write articles. I listen right? To me, the single best thing that any salesperson can do right now is listen.

To me listening is the new prospecting. What do I mean by that every salesperson should be following it should be connected their current customers, every salesperson should have an account target that some kind of targeted account list. And inside that targeted account list, whether it be 25 or 50, whatever that number is, they should be following. They should be connected. And they should be listening to what’s going on in a digitally driven socially connected world. And they should be listening for clues.

And what am I saying? And this is how this is how my brain works. But follow along with me. Because the late Jim Rohn said this success leaves clues. Yeah, you’ve probably heard that before. So now I’m going to flip this on its head for all the sales people that are out there. So let’s take the late Jim Rohn. What he said success leaves clues. I’m going to replace one word in this and follow along with me. I’m going to replace the word success with social.

And I’m here to tell you that social leaves clues for you to prospect. What do I mean by that I just mentioned a minute ago listenings, the new prospecting social leaves clues. Salespeople, if you’re honing in on this, right now, as you’re watching or listening to this, your clients are posting things on social. Yep, your prospects are posting things on social people within those companies are posting things on social people. Those are clues, they are leaving you clues.

 A smart sales professional is going to listen, right? And watch for those clues. And they’re going to leverage those clues to open up new conversations with people to engage in how they can help them do better business. Make sense?

Mostafa Hosseini  38:17 

I’m sorry, I got disconnected for a second.

Larry Levine  38:21 

No, as I was just gonna say that a smart salesperson meeting catcher out saying I’ll just repeat a little bit of it. A smart salesperson is going to follow their clients, they’re going to follow their customers. However you want to refer to him clients or customers totally up to you. But I have my own two cents on that.

They’re going to follow their prospects. They’re going to pay attention to what they’re posting on social app. Because those are clues. I think today, right? I you know, and I grew up in the old analog world, I had to prospect like a mad person, right. I had to do 50 cold calls a day and I had to beat the hell out of the phones. Right. But that’s what made me me. That’s just the era I grew up in. Yeah, but but here’s the here’s what’s interesting. One of the was the first two books I ever read. One was by Dale Carnegie, the other ones by Tom Hopkins.

And Tom Hopkins is a near and dear friend of mine. He wrote the book how to master the art of selling as a sales legend. That was the second book I read. The first book I read was by Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People. And that book was written in 1937. And the core principles of that book still is alive and well today. The core foundation of that book is building relationships and changing the way people think that’s transfer this to 2021.

Salespeople, you’re still building relationships and changing the way people think the tools have changed. The prospecting tools have changed. Does the phone still work? Yes. Does email still work? Yes. Does Social Work? Yes. Does networking events work? Yes, they’re done differently. Everything’s done differently. Now. But yeah, we get so caught up in the sales world of what doesn’t work and what works and so forth.

 It’s why one of my favorite sayings and selling from the heart is this. salespeople have hypnotized themselves into believing what they’re not doing. Doesn’t work. Think about that for a second.

Mostafa Hosseini  40:17 

Mm hmm. Can you repeat that one more time, please?

Larry Levine  40:20 

Yeah, there’s a double negative in there. So just follow along with me on it. salespeople have hypnotized themselves into believing what they’re not doing. Doesn’t work. Can you? Your your wheels are turning on this one I could tell ya. So false, so follow along with me. And I’m just going to keep it simple. Okay. I’ll have a conversation with a salesperson, right?

And they’ll say, hey, Larry, none of this social stuff even works. Have you tried it? No. Then how do you know it doesn’t work? Exactly. Right. That’s as simple as that. It’s just that salespeople will be the firt. They’re, they’re like Debbie doubters. They will tell you all this stuff doesn’t work. And they might throw in a nasty word or explicative in there, right?

They may say this stuff just doesn’t work. Well, how do you know? And then there’s dead silence. Right. And that’s why I say salespeople have hypnotized themselves into believing what they’re not doing doesn’t work. Right. Now, this pertains to prospecting. How do you know prospecting doesn’t work? How do you know email prospecting doesn’t work or the phone and all that? It’s because you pay attention to the noise? Yep. And you got crappy messaging, and you open up conversations just like everybody else.

Mostafa Hosseini  41:40 

Love it. Can you give us an example of how you used a prospects social media posting to your advantage when it comes to reaching out to them?

Larry Levine  41:54 

Yeah, do it all the time. So you know, a lot of it is so so here’s what’s interesting. I’m gonna keep this really simple. I’m going to answer that question is, I believe there’s two reasons these are, they’re near and dear to me. You may agree, or you may not that’s okay. But I believe that people post things on social for two reasons.

They want to be seen, and they want to be heard. Yep. Okay, if they didn’t want to be seen, and they didn’t want to be heard, they wouldn’t post right. Yep. Plain and simple as that. Right? This stuff’s not rocket science, it’s fairly simple stuff. If you take that, if you take the if you take the whole philosophy that people post on social because they want to be seen and heard, then flip this from a snow sales mindset focusing on this and just say, okay, if I’m following my clients, and I’m connected to my clients, I’m following my targeted opportunities, people I’d like to do business with and people inside of those.

If I’m following them, then the easiest way for me to get noticed is quite simple. Insert my voice into their content. Pay attention to it. offer different point of view, acknowledge it. It’s okay. It’s it’s that simple. So, I have so for instance, I have a target account list here selling from the heart. These are people and companies I’d like to do business with. Yep, I follow them. I learned something about them.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:28 

Can you give us a quick example of a you don’t have to name names, but say, John, you saw John posting about something you’re like, Alright, here’s that. Here’s what you did with that. Information?

Larry Levine  43:40 

Yeah, so so that, so that’s just say, a company that I’d like to do business with? Right, you know, it’s the company. And then obviously, there’s key individuals, influencers, decision makers in there. So I’m a big believer that we have to go 60 I’m a minimum, right. So, so follow along with me. So I want to do business with ABC company.

So I start following them on social and I tagged and I put it into my CRM and so forth, right? This is a company that I’d like to do business with. So I started learning something about that company, right, then then identify six to eight to 10, decision makers, influencers, key individuals inside that company who may be socially active, I identify who they are, and I put them into my CRM. And then I start going on a listening hunt. And I will start following their content.

So if it’s on the company level, right, and they posts an article or an event they did or something like that. I might acknowledge the company event by just giving it a LIKE now you can’t take likes and comments to the bank, but it’s what you do with it. Right? My good friend Mark Hunter who introduced us has told me that right he says everybody you can take likes and comments to the bank can’t cash those.

But I’m a big believer it’s how you convert those the conversations that matter. So at a company level, I’m retagging the company back in. In other words, excuse me at ABC company, right that pops up on LinkedIn. Looks like you had a great time at that event. I keep it simple, right? Glad to see you’re community minded.

 So am I keep up the great work, right? If it’s an article they posted at a company level, I’m going to read the article, I’m gonna learn something about the article. And I’m gonna put my two cents into that comment section. And now if it’s an individual, to say it’s an executive, I’m gonna start following what they’re doing right, I’m gonna start looking for what they’re posting. And again, I’m looking for ways to insert my voice into their content, a way to acknowledge it, right? If if they posted, if they wrote something themselves, I’m gonna read it, I’m gonna offer my two cents on it. I’m gonna congratulate them on it, hey, I really enjoyed this article, especially this paragraph, this is what it meant to me. I might even you know, then I’ll ask him to connect.

And I’m a big believer in this as I want salespeople and people out there, the fastest way to get noticed is engage in other people’s content. And then for you to keep in mind is, Am I worthy of having a conversation? Right? So in other words, John Smith, the CFO at ABC Company, if I start commenting on John Smith’s content, and I start peeking his curiosity, what do you think he’s gonna do? He’s gonna go who’s this Larry Levine guy, right?

Right? Do you might profile, he may start following me, he may comment back into some of my content. If he’s my ideal person I’d like to do business with, I’m probably going to ask him to connect. And then he’s going to go to my profile, he’s gonna see my presence, he’s gonna see what I do out there. And it’s an easy transition to the conversation is because I want this is what I really want people to key in on. So when you’re prospecting, leveraging this I’m not here to discredit anybody in how they prospect leveraging LinkedIn or social, however you want to throw this out there. It’s how are you positioned? Are you worthy of having a conversation with do you look like there’s somebody who’s credible. So there’s three E’s that I live by.

And those three E’s, I hold myself accountable to the people I work with, I hold themselves accountable to this. If you want to get if you really want to understand how to play this really well and be successful at it. It’s about educating your network, engaging with your network, and exciting the hell out of them into a conversation. Bring some passion to what you do. Don’t just act like everybody else. People always ask me, what’s the key to success on social?

I say bring consistency to the table and quit playing the algorithmic games. Right, just consistently show up and act like a sales professional. If you consistently show up and act like a sales professional, you’ve just stood out amongst the other 95% of the people on this platform that are nothing but empty suits.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:09 

Exactly.

Larry Levine  48:11 

And I’m sorry, I’m being direct about it. But I just speak my mind when it comes to this stuff. That’s fair.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:17 

So how long do you give it before you reach out to them? Like, how long have you tried to engage them? Let’s say they are posting let’s say you, for example, I myself, mostly on my personal stuff, personal social accounts, I post about family pictures, right?

And then, obviously, we air this show on social media. So how long do you give it? Or how many interactions on average? Do you give it before? Or how do you gauge whether you should reach out to this person and start a conversation in private chat or offline?

Larry Levine  48:59 

Sometimes it’s immediately. Okay. And I’ll literally so say I write an article every week, right? That gets posted on my website, it gets posted on LinkedIn, I see another Facebook comment. So I’m going to go ahead and address that in a moment. from somebody who asked about the site part of this, I’ll get to that. So just remind me, but every Sunday I’ll post an article, right? I write it every Saturday. I’ve been doing that now for almost six years.

And I will post an article every single Sunday. It goes out on LinkedIn goes out Monday on my website, and I will look for engagement on my article. I will look for the likes, I will look for the comments. Those are the people that have shown interest in it right. I don’t care if 10,000 people viewed it. If 20 people viewed it, I really don’t care what I want or the people that have at least liked it.

 I don’t care if they skimmed it and liked it. I don’t care if they’ve read the whole thing and thrown their comments on there. That’s engagement. And right from then, as always start looking through the life In the comments, who are these people that commented on it? Do they fit my ideal customer profile? Right? Yeah.

And if they fit my ideal customer profile, in other words, somebody who I would like to do business with based on my criteria, then immediately, I mean, he mmediately. I’m asking them to connect on LinkedIn. And it’s something as simple as this. I’ll even give you the verbage. Right. Hey, Bill, I am so glad that you found your way to my Sunday article. I’m honored right? It’d be an honor. If I can connect with you on LinkedIn. Would you mind?

 Look forward to getting acquainted, Larry? I keep it simple. It’s pleasant. It’s nice. Yeah, right. Yeah. Then non threatening, it’s non threatening? Well, I like it. And here’s the thing, one or two things are going to happen. They’re either going to accept it, or they’re not going to accept it. Simple as that. Yep. And if they accept it, that’s the start of a conversation. Right? They accept it, then my next thing that happens is immediately right. If I see it, right, if they’re online, and we’re online at the same time, if not, I, I’ll see it on my mobile device.

Then if they accept, I’ll just say, Right on, right. And this is the, this gets back to the excite part of this, that somebody had put in there. What’s the excite part of this? Right? If somebody accepts my connection request, I might go right on exclamation point. There’s some excitement behind it. Right? Hey, right on, John, thanks for accepting my invitation to connect here on LinkedIn. I’m here to be a resource to you. Along the way, please let me know how I may be of service. All the best Larry says Simple as that, hmm.

Again, one or two things are gonna happen. They’re either gonna comment back, or they’re not. And then if they don’t, it’s not over, I just take that goes into my CRM, I throw a little tag and I say reach out to the person in three or four days. And when I reach out to that person in three or four days, I say something like this, you enjoyed my article last week, here’s one from three weeks ago that you may like.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:17 

Very interesting.

Larry Levine  52:19 

That’s it. This is the right it’s it’s that simple.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:24 

But I follow up with them on their Absolutely,

Larry Levine  52:27 

especially if I want to do business with them. The whole thing behind sales is you know, everything gets lost in the in the lack of follow up. However, if it’s somebody that I’d like to do business with that fits my ideal customer profile. If I can engage in that conversation and move it offline in a natural, humanistic non salesy fashion, then I’m going to just go ahead and get that loaded into my database. And I’m just going to start setting callbacks.

And then it’s going to be three days later, I’m going to send them another article. Hey, by the way, if you found this article useful, find your way to selling from the heart go to selling from the heart dotnet, you’ll find all kinds of resource or resources there access to my podcast. And I leave it like that. And I’m a big believer that the more you give, the more you get. The more you give gifts, the more value you give, the more insight you give, the more education you impart on somebody, it comes back tenfold.

Here’s what I’d like everyone to think about. And in this goes to sales funnel work is if salespeople want to have an ever flowing sales funnel, they must build an ever flowing relationship funnel. I’ll repeat it again. If you all want to have an ever flowing sales funnel, you must build an ever flowing relationship funnel.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:48 

Very nice.

Larry Levine  53:48 

Think about that one and how it pertains to prospecting.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:52 

What what is then a relationship? Lemme, let’s answer the excite part. Can you tell us more about the excite part? So he said, engaging and exciting. Can you tell us more about the excite part? And I want to go back to the definition of relationship funnel and what you mean by that. Okay, sure.

Larry Levine  54:12 

So let’s talk part first, excite part. Hopefully, I’ve been imparting some excitement during this time that we have together, right? If you bring zero passion to what you’re doing, if you’re not excited about what you do, it comes across instantaneously. As the tonality you use, right? It’s, you know, I’m a big believer in leveraging video.

I’m a big believer that words matter. And message matters. How you insert an exclamation point, right? How you use all this stuff. Hey, I’m super excited that you connected with me. I am so glad you connected with me. I love what I do. It would be an honor to to have a conversation with you. Right exclamation point, things like that.

 Boring People can tell when you’re just delivering monotone stuff it comes across in messaging, it comes across in video messaging is that’s the excite part of this, if you have no passion, if you have no clarity behind your messaging, anything like that people sense it.

Mostafa Hosseini  55:17 

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Yeah. I mean, I mean, your excitement. And whether you’re happy and energetic about what you do comes across in all forms of communication. I mean, each they see your profile, they see the way you communicate, they say, to read the way you respond, and your language and the rest of it.

Larry Levine  55:36 

Yeah, so I want to get I want to get back to this relationship funnel part of this. Absolutely. And here and again, follow along with me. Again, it’s how my brain works. But it, it it helped me throughout my whole sales career, and transferring into how I work with sales teams. Now. That’s leverage, I’ll leverage you, I’ll just use you as an example. Right? Just because I connect to you, right? Now, just because you agree to have a conversation with me, doesn’t mean that you know, me, like me, trust me or even want to do business with me. Mm hmm.

You follow? Yep. It’s up to me to earn the right to move that along. So when I meet somebody for the very first time, so that’s just think about this funnel work. Like there’s, again, I’m going old school on this, but I think you all get it is there’s top of middle of bottom of a sales funnel, I believe. And I submit, there’s top of middle and bottom of a relationship funnel, I meet you for the very first time, you might be my ideal customer profile, right, you might be somebody I want to do business with, however I just met you, that sits at the top of the relationship funnel, I have to do something to earn your trust, earn the right to keep advancing that right.

 That means I and it’s me, it’s all about selling from the heart, I’m going to pour myself into you. I’m going to give you I’m going to give some value, I’m going to educate you, I’m going to give you some insight. Yeah. And I’m gonna keep advancing that and I’m going to have some conversation, I’m going to get to know you. I’m not saying this is a long dance and a long drawn out process.

For all those people out there going well, now you’re going to slow things down. Think about it. Most sales funnels are anemic, because they only know a few people inside those accounts. And those accounts are sitting somewhere on a funnel that have been there for a while. I held myself accountable to this to rhyme but follow along with me.

The more you know about someone, the more you grow with somebody, right? The more you know, the more you grow. The more you learn from someone, the more you earn from someone. Yeah, absolutely. And the only way you do that is to double down on the relationship. And I doubled down on the relationship part of this.

And it’s just by this, the more comfortable I made somebody feel. The more comfortable I made somebody feel with me, the more comfortable they became, and in turn, they would share uncomfortable things going on in their business. Mm hmm. Think about that for a second. Yeah. And I use the I use these two words early on in our time together, connect and relate.

The faster I can connect to somebody, the faster I can relate to somebody, the faster I put somebody in a comfortable state of mind, the faster they’re going to start opening up about things. Absolutely. And and here and here’s one here’s one last thing, because it’s all been told to us time and time again.

How many times in sales world have we heard this? And I’ll use my name as an example. I’ll pick on myself. Hey, Larry, right. I don’t want you to take this personal but we decided to take our business elsewhere.

Larry, please don’t take this personal. We decided to do business with right. Somebody else. People it happens but we’ve been let down like this and sales all the time. I’m flipping this on its head business today. Post pandemic is personal.

The more personal you make it, the better off you’ll be, the more comfortable you make somebody feel with you, the more comfortable they will start sharing things about themselves and their company that they’re not sharing with other people. Which means you got to go first.

You got to share a piece of you first before they’ll ever share a piece of themselves with you.

Mostafa Hosseini  59:40 

Love it. Larry, it’s been an How are you doing for time do you need to run?

Larry Levine  59:48 

No, I don’t run I walk. Do you need to walk? Normally kid? Yes. Do you need to run? I said no. Right. Is this a corny comeback?

Mostafa Hosseini  59:57 

So here’s the deal. It’s been an Hour. And I haven’t even started asking my questions.

Larry Levine  1:00:06 

So how about this? Let’s just do part two of this. I would love to come back, you save your questions, and we’ll come back for part two.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:00:14 

Let’s do it. So let me ask a couple of another question that I had. So what’s your best tip on getting personal fast?

Larry Levine  1:00:27 

Described personal without crossing the line.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:00:31 

So you said that to open up, the faster you get to talking, the faster the they will share?

Larry Levine  1:00:41 

Right, so, so So I’ll give you, I’ll give you I’ll give you a real world personal situation, right? And I’m a big believer in, I look at things in like a 90 day period. Yes, it’s not. That’s just how my brain works, right? So if I’m having a conversation with you, and I want to make it and I want to get personal, so I’m talking personal without crossing line, personal right, turn these things into HR moments, which is a no, no.

 So I might say something like this, right. Hey, Mostafa, you know what, over the last 90 days, I’m doing some reflection. And over the last 90 days, you know, I learned these three things about myself. I trip over the last 90 days, I transformed a little bit of my morning routine. Instead of reading one chapter a day, I read two chapters a day of leadership quality books.

Hey, I’m just curious, what’s the last 90 days look like for you? You see where I’m going with this? I’m sharing a little personal things about me in order to get somebody to feel comfortable to share a little bit of personal things about them.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:48 

Alright, so you go in first you share some of the personal stuff, and then they get to come back if they want to open up and

Larry Levine  1:01:55 

well. Yeah, I mean, well, you use the word if, but here’s what here’s where I want to go with this is how you phrase the questions, right? Hey, Mostafa, you know, over the last 90 days, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned new, right? This is what I’ve learned. Hey, I’m just curious. What’s the last 90 days look like for you?

What’s what’s what’s one thing you’ve learned new? What’s one challenge that you’ve had? What’s one roadblock you’ve been faced with? What’s the next 90 days look like for you? Love it. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:02:37 

Those are great questions.

Larry Levine  1:02:39 

And then from there. Now this goes back to the art of intentional listening. Don’t don’t, right, you’re going to share a piece of you. But share a piece of you because you want to. Yeah. And then ask them for something in return and intent and just with intention, listen, and listen hard, and then play off of what they say. It’s the art behind the conversation. I remember a while back on the selling from the heart podcast.

 We had somebody who just had a mic drop moment. And he said what I’m deeply concerned with is that many in sales are conversationally incompetent. Think about that, like Oh, holy smokes. So where are you going with this? He goes I believe many in sales are conversationally incompetent because all of their conversations are sales centric. They’re all selling selling stuff. They’re they’re all selling selling selling. But if I want to get to know you, it’s certainly not going to be about sales center crap. Hola.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:45 

Huh? So you want to make it more personal and create a relationship before you start vomiting?

Larry Levine  1:03:52 

Yeah, so so it’s, you know, it’s interesting. I’m a big CNBC junkie. I love watching CNBC. I love watching Shark Tank. I’m drawn to a guy named Marcus Lemonis. Now Marcus Lemonis has a reality show on CNBC called the prophet. He also happens to be the CEO of camping world here in the United States. very successful, very successful person.

He was first generation they were his family was immigrants. They came here he’s a self made millionaire. Nice and on the prophet. He works he gives back to like small and medium sized businesses so small and medium sized businesses that are struggling.

He pours himself he’ll pour himself and his money into to help resurrect their business and return he gets a piece of the company right? And so forth. I happen to love it because I believe salespeople can learn a lot from shows like this, whether it be shark tank or the Prophet, watch, you know, some of the show the business centric shows on CNBC, you can learn a lot. And Marcus Lemonis, you know, talked about this business is personal.

He gets personal with the companies he’s going to invest in really quick. He wants to know their story. So he wants to get connect to him. He wants to find something he can relate to. He wants to know their backstory. He wants to know the story of how they’re marketing themselves out in the community. Why? He even says it businesses personal.

People relate to personal things. And it’s then how you transfer that to business that will propel sales professionals. That’s what sales professionals do really well. They learn how to connect at a human level. And related to human level, that in turn, they have high levels of business acumen, they got phenomenal business conversational skills that can transfer that to, how can I help you do better business, they got great questioning skills, they got high confidence.

They’re clear and concise with their messaging. And I can go on and on and on on this one.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:05:44 

Absolutely. Very, very interesting. All right. Very, can you tell us about your gift that you’re sharing with us?

Larry Levine  1:05:52 

Yeah, if you all go to selling from the hard dotnet, forward slash book, you can just pay shipping and handling. And you can go ahead and get a free copy of selling from the heart app. So just go to selling from the heart dotnet forward slash book.

And if you just pay for the shipping and handling, you’ll get a signed copy of selling from the heart with a couple other little gifts in there.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:06:15 

Absolutely. And gang, as you can see, and here, Larry definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to selling from the heart. And we’ve just had having such an engaging conversation. Right off the bat. It’s been an hour and a few minutes, and I haven’t even started my comp might. I be honest.

 So we’ll get a copy of selling from the heart from Larry Levine, get a hold of him and try to absorb and digest as much information about selling from the heart as you possibly can.

Larry Levine  1:06:52 

That’s awesome. I appreciate this time. Yeah, by the way, I couldn’t believe it was an hour.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:06:57 

Yeah. And I just looked at this. I was like, wow, I honestly haven’t even asked my first question. Like, we just we just, we just went on on on a great conversation and some follow up questions. And it’s just been a value bomb with what you just share here.

So I really appreciate that. Now, we definitely have to come back for to do maybe a part two of this. And so we could talk more about selling from the heart and dig deeper into that.

Larry Levine  1:07:30 

All you got to do is let me know, I’d be more than happy. Well, we’ll

Mostafa Hosseini  1:07:32 

definitely set that up. Now, before we wrap up. Is there anything that you would like to add? And before we get going?

Larry Levine  1:07:41 

Yeah, just just one thing. And again, I touched on it just real briefly, but I wish I would have done this in my 20s. And I didn’t really learn this until my 50s it’s find an inner circle. And hone in on it. What do I mean by inner circle is I had to divorce myself of certain relationships over time that were toxic. Yeah. And, and to me, your inner circle is going to clearly define you and I didn’t really realize that until my 50s is your inner circle.

I call it a board of directors. They’re gonna propel you to new heights. And these are right so when I talk about my inner circle, right, these can be friends who know me who are like minded. This could be somebody who’s brings me spiritual advice. This could be somebody who brings me financial advice. This is could bring somebody who gives me leadership advice, and I hold them near and dear to me. Absolutely.

And if there’s anything I can impart on people is find an inner circle develop an inner circle of influencers, people that can help propel your career. And watch what starts to happen if there’s anything I can impart on anybody that’s that is learned to double down and develop a close knit circle of influence and watch what starts to happen.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:09:08 

And I and I believe that that’s along the lines of your six close friends basically determine your future

Larry Levine  1:09:17 

Yeah, it you know, in and I look back on my journey that’s unfolded just in the last four years in bringing someone from the heart to the forefront and going from copier sales to speaking all over the world to create an a movement around authenticity and sincerity and heart is I doubled down on my center of influence. And I put myself in proximity to people of influence.

Mostafa Hosseini  1:09:42 

Absolutely. Absolutely. Very valuable. Larry, I really appreciate you and your your the information that you shared and all the actionable advice that you share with our with our audience, and I actually learned quite a bit today myself so I’d really appreciate Shit that gang if you’re watching or listening, go to selling from the heart.net.

Forward slash book to get a hold of Larry’s book, selling from the heart. All you have to do is pay for shipping and handling and they’ll send you a free copy of the book. Thank you, Larry, thank you again for to my pleasure. You have any questions about the topic of selling from the heart for me or Larry, pop them in the chat box or reach out to Larry asked the questions get a hold of him. He obviously knows what he’s talking about. And I look forward to our second conversation so we could continue on what we just start today. Awesome.

Absolutely. And as usual, don’t forget to Like, Subscribe, comment, ask questions or tag friends who could benefit from our conversation here. And I look forward to our next episode. If there are any certain topics that you would like us to cover, put them in a comment below. And we will I’ll try to find someone that would be a subject matter expert on what you’re asking, and then we’ll see what we could do on that. Thank you again for joining the other conference for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode. Bye now.